Jack Nicholson fought back tears as he paid tribute to the director who gave him his big break in the late 1950s during a recent documentary chat. The movie legend agreed to sit down for 20 minutes for director Alex Stapleton’s Roger Corman film, Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel, but according to The Hollywood Reporter he became emotional as the memories ticked by.

He ended up spending hours chatting to Stapleton, who says, “After we finished, Jack told me, ‘I’ve only gone on camera one other time for something like this – for Stanley Kubrick.'”

Nicholson’s first movie role was in Corman’s 1958 movie The Cry Baby Killer.